


The Eastern Lake

by sparrowkeet1



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:15:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25050772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowkeet1/pseuds/sparrowkeet1
Summary: Over the last several years, Fire Lord Zuko has made a habit of slipping out of the palace at night whenever he needs to clear his head. He doesn't assume the identity of the Blue Spirit anymore, just seeks the water east of the palace and looks over it while he sits and thinks. Alone with the soft dark and the glittering lake, he can usually calm his mind and heart, and he often leaves the spot with a solution to his problem.When his old friends visit the Fire Nation and long-abandoned feelings for Katara roar back to life, he can think of nothing else for days. Maybe this is his chance to give voice to his affection; maybe that would ruin everything. He is tortured day and night until finally he flees to his hideaway, hoping the moon and stars can shed some light on his tumultuous emotions. They do reveal something to him, but it's not what he expects.--Written for Zutara Week 2020, Prompt Day 4 - Celestial. Post-canon.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 405





	The Eastern Lake

Zuko slips out of the palace under cover of darkness and heads east. The soldiers in the guard tower nod to him silently when he passes through. They are used to the Fire Lord’s habits by now; they do not object when he steals away to the lake just outside the wall. 

They don’t understand, he’s sure, why a Firebender would want to be out in the water under the shadow of the night or the light of the moon. It is against their nature, sun-worshippers that they are. They are at their weakest at night, their most vulnerable. 

He’s never tried to explain. There’s no chance he can articulate the way sitting on the shore or standing in the lapping waves reminds him of being out with Aang and their friends. Not that he wants to live in the wilderness again—he’s happy to have a bed and a bathtub—but he misses the brief span of time when they were together as a team. He misses before the comet but after Yon Rha, when Katara had forgiven him, when he felt like part of their little family. 

No, he definitely wouldn’t go back to sleeping in Appa’s saddle in midair, but he would like to go back to when he was rarely alone. It has been years since the war ended, and they’ve all scattered to where the world needs them most. For Zuko, that’s on the Fire Nation’s throne, and he is proud to be there. He has Uncle Iroh, of course, and a circle of mostly-decent advisers, but it is a hard job much of the time. A lonely job. Even with frequent letters from all of them, plus regular visits from Aang and his flying menagerie, he feels their absence often. 

Their absence, however, is not the reason for his slow winding through the trees on this particular night. He is going in search of the water to think, but not about missing his friends, because they are here. 

It was Aang’s idea to bring them all together, for business and for pleasure, and he ferried them all to the Fire Nation on Appa a few days ago. They’ve spent their time catching up and working on international relations, and Zuko is happy to have their raucous laughing voices bouncing off the stone walls of the palace, he really is. 

Except he hasn’t slept well since they arrived, hasn’t felt right. He is off-balance, blindsided by the resurgence of feelings he thought were long dead. He is consumed, waking and sleeping and dreaming, and it is almost unbearable. 

He remembers, when they were sleeping in the Western Air Temple, dreaming of Katara. He remembers her strength, her tenacity, her kindness. He remembers the knife-sharp pain of her distrust and the cool relief of her forgiveness. He remembers the fevered fantasies of her lithe body tangled with his, the nights alone in his bed with his hand around himself and her name in his mouth. 

He was (is) fascinated by her, this girl with enough power to best Azula but without an ounce of greed. She used her formidable skill to heal instead of harm, but she was nothing like the other healers he knew, all meek and retiring. She was nearly as hotheaded as he was, always willing to shout him down, but in the end she was just as willing to forgive him. 

She was nothing like Mai, either. He could read joy and rage and hope and tenderness on her pretty face; the only emotion he’d never seen her express was apathy. She was vibrant and alive and always willing to give generously out of herself. 

And she would never, ever love him back. 

Even if he hadn’t terrorized her village or tied her to a tree or betrayed her kindness in Ba Sing Se—even if she was capable of loving, in that way, someone as ruined, inside and out, as he was—Aang was first in line, and Zuko wasn’t about to compete with the Avatar.

He remembers saying good-bye to her when she and Sokka and Aang set sail for the South Pole after the war ended. Watching her leave made his chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with Azula’s lightning. He was so sure then that she shared Aang’s obvious infatuation, and anyway she was returning to her home halfway around the world, so he never said a word. What would have been the point? And the ache receded in the intervening years, so faded he’d thought it was gone. 

Except now she is here, a woman instead of a teenager, and Aang is shacked up with Toph, of all people, and the ache has flared into a forest fire that threatens to devour him. 

He hopes the water can quell the blaze. He hopes the moon can cast some light on his turmoil. He hopes the pain in his chest won’t bring him to his knees. 

When he reaches the shore, he looks out over the expanse of water and feels all the air leave his lungs.

A familiar figure is wreathed in moonlight in the middle of the lake. 

Katara is hip-deep and moving gracefully through bending forms, the water curled sinuously around her body. Her clothes are folded neatly on the shore, leaving her in her bindings that cling wetly to her skin, and Zuko still can’t draw a breath. 

He saw her like this before, ages ago, when they were training Aang, and the images had fueled his fantasies even then. But now—now her glistening skin and full curves and windswept curls could belong to a River Spirit instead of a woman. If he didn’t know better, he would say she _was_ a spirit, maybe a goddess, certainly some celestial being descended to earth. Whatever she is, she is too beautiful to be real, and Zuko is captivated. 

She draws her arms over her head with an elegant arch of her spine, and the motion puts her on display, the swell of her breasts and the shadow of her nipples through the thin wrappings. She directs the water effortlessly, and he knows she is putting on a masterful performance, but he can’t tear his eyes away from the jut of her hipbones, the line of her bare legs, the curve of her ass. 

He watches her, frozen to the spot, until she moves too close and turns toward him. Then he retreats, through the trees and the tower and the palace, until he is back in his bed, alone. 

He hoped the stars would reveal something to him, and they certainly had—but not in any way that helped. He drifts into fitful sleep and dreams of a goddess bathed in silver light.

***

Katara sneaks out to the lake for the second night in a row.

The Fire Nation capital isn’t much different from any of the other cities she’s visited, but beyond the ring of the battlements, the country is an oasis. For all its oppressive heat, the Fire Nation is surrounded by and shot through with water, so plants and trees grow green and lush. The Fire Lilies are in bloom, and she drinks in the sight of them while she slips off her shoes to curl her toes in the grass. 

A lifetime ago, when she hated the Fire Nation and everything in it, she didn’t truly appreciate the beauty on display—not in the land or in the people. She relented on her hatred of the people after Zuko’s ceaseless work to redeem himself, but she hardly had time after that to go sightseeing in the country. The race to end the war is a blur in her memory now, and while her thoughts have often turned to the Fire Nation in the intervening years, she’s never considered that the very place would transform before her eyes.

Now she can see that there is much to admire here. 

The South Pole has changed in her mind, too. The ice and snow and sea surround her with water, and while that feels natural and reassuring to her, it also feels…empty. Here in the Fire Nation, she is surrounded by nearly as much water along with so much _life_. 

If she is being truthful with herself, she hasn’t been happy in the South Pole in some time. When the war ended and Aang flew her whole family home, she was overjoyed. She and Master (Grandfather) Pakku spent weeks restoring the village to its former glory. Her father worked with Sokka, training him to take over as Chief, and they included her in many of their discussions and plans. Aang made sure every Water Tribe warrior made it home safely, and soon she found herself attending weddings and training new little waterbenders. For several years, she was busy and fulfilled, and though she missed the others and kept in close touch with them, she had no desire to leave her home after so long away from it. 

Gradually, though, Sokka hit his stride as Chief and didn’t need her help much anymore. Pakku was quite capable of teaching the young waterbenders by himself, and the whole village seemed to hum along happily without her. She spent her time yearning for the adventure of their past, not the danger or the terror but the wonder of seeing so much of the world. 

She yearned, too, for the easy companionship of their group of friends. Sokka and Suki were as close as ever, despite the distance between them, and from Aang’s visits she gathered that he and Toph struck up a relationship that was as wild and free as each of them. She became the odd one out, alone. 

When Aang suggested a reunion, she leapt at the chance to get out of the ice for a while. She is happy to be together again, she really is. She is happy, too, to find the hidden loveliness of the landscape and the water.

The real surprise of this trip, though—that is the Fire Lord. 

It has caught her off guard, seeing him and feeling her heart flutter. The time she spent with him in the past was a whirlwind of fear and hatred, then forgiveness, then cautious friendship, all in the shadow of the approaching comet. By the time she started to get to know him, the war was over, and she was soaring away from the Fire Nation towards her home. She kept up with him as much as everyone else, but letters hadn’t prepared her for the man who greeted them at the palace a few days ago. 

He is regal now, every inch the king. The Fire Nation is flourishing under his rule, and she can plainly see his dedication to serving his people and maintaining the peace. She remembers his uncle’s words: _an idealist with a pure heart and unquestionable honor_. She remembers thinking that maybe there was _some_ question, but now she knows there is none. 

He is, in many ways, still Zuko under the crown. His temper has flared since they’ve been together again, usually because of Sokka or Toph, but more than his temper he still has his sadness. She can see just as plainly, the lingering scars of his past, inside and out, and she wishes for a way to heal them, even just a few. 

One thing that isn’t the same—his morose girlfriend is nowhere to be found. She doesn’t know for sure, but Katara thinks he is alone, just like her. The odd one out, except are you still the odd ones out if there’s a pair of you? 

Not to mention that he is taller and stronger than when he was a teenager, his face sharp and handsome as ever, his dark hair long now but still unruly. 

He is familiar and new all at once, and she can’t get him out of her mind. 

And so last night she heeded the water’s call and came out under the moon to think, but far from bringing her clarity, the night made her more confused than before. While she was moving through her forms, she could swear she felt someone watching her. When she turned, no one was there, but she couldn’t shake the sense that she hadn’t been alone—and wouldn’t that be a new feeling? 

She dreamed that night of Zuko’s golden eyes on her, and now she is going out again. She tells herself it’s to make another attempt at getting a handle on her thoughts, but even she doesn’t really believe herself. It is not the water that beckons to her tonight but him, or the hope of him, and she doesn’t even think about ignoring the summons. 

She pads through the trees and wonders if the Fire Lord makes a habit of sneaking out of his palace at night. Maybe that’s why the guards seemed unsurprised to see her, why she had free access to the tower doors. Maybe her mystery audience last night really was his golden gaze. 

Maybe he liked what he saw. 

She approaches the lake’s shore, and sure enough, a lone figure is perched on the sand with his arms around his knees. He is facing the water, wrapped in a cloak, not wearing his crown, but the silhouette is unmistakable. It’s Zuko. 

Her heartbeat kicks up a notch. She tries to get a grip; just because he is out here now doesn’t mean he was out here last night, and just because she hopes to see him doesn’t mean he hopes to see her. 

Before she can decide to speak up or flee, he is on his feet. “Who’s out there?” he demands. 

She swallows hard and steps into the starlight. His face softens instantly, and if she didn’t know better, she’d say the faintest of smiles crosses his face. He folds himself back to the ground as she comes to kneel beside him. 

“What are you doing out here?” he asks her. 

“I just wanted to be closer to the water.” It’s only half a lie. She does want to be closer to the water. She just wants to be closer to him, too. “What about you?”

She looks sideways at the sharp angles of his face, the silken sweep of his hair. She is on his left, and she takes in his scar as part of him; she has never known a Zuko without it. She has known a lot of Zukos—the angry kid hellbent on finding Aang, still bleeding from his father’s betrayal; the uncertain tea shop clerk under Ba Sing Se, trying out a new life; the Fire Nation traitor twice-banished, willing to turn his back on his whole life to follow the right path. Now she knows the Fire Lord, a fair and skilled leader. Tonight, with the water casting dappled moonlight over his cheeks, he looks like a new Zuko entirely, ethereal and otherworldly, and she wants to know this one, too. 

“I come out here to think sometimes.” He catches her looking at him, and she swears she sees that faint smile again, this time with pink splashed across his skin. She swears, too, that his amber eyes on her feel familiar, but that might be wishful thinking. 

“What’s on your mind?” she asks him. 

“Hm—what?” 

She laughs at his flummoxed expression. “You said you come out here to think.” 

“Oh, yeah. I, uh, was just thinking that, with everyone being here, together again—it’s different. It’s good, but it’s different.” 

That’s an understatement. “How do you mean, different?” 

“Oh, well.” He is definitely pink, and it ruins the celestial effect of his pensive face in the moonlight, but it is unbearably cute. “Like, Aang and Toph…I did not expect that.” 

She giggles. “Oh, yeah. I think it’s been going on for a while. I wouldn’t have predicted it, either, but it makes sense. They have fun together.” 

“I guess.” He pulls a face. “I think it’s kind of weird, but whatever.” 

She agrees with him, but she doesn't want to talk about Aang and Toph. “That’s all that's different, then?” she asks carefully. 

He rubs his neck, shifts uncomfortably. “Well, uh…” His voice is quiet. “You look different.” 

She arches an eyebrow. “Thanks, I guess,” she says wryly. 

“Oh, no, I meant, uh—you know, I was—I didn’t—” He stammers so much she takes pity on him and bumps her shoulder into his. 

“I know, I know—I was just giving you a hard time.” 

“I’ll say,” he mutters, and she lifts up her other eyebrow. He’s not pink so much as he’s crimson now. 

This part of him isn’t new—he is as awkward as she remembers, earnest and shy underneath the brooding. She feels pretty confident now that he has noticed her the way she has noticed him, at least in some sense, and she feels anticipation and excitement and hope take up residence in her chest. 

“Listen, I, um, kind of have a confession to make,” he mumbles, still flushed red. “I, uh, I came out here last night, too. And I kind of, uh, saw you. I swear, I didn’t know you were out here! I didn’t follow you or anything—I really do come out here to think—but I should have, you know, said something.” He puts his face in his hands, says through his fingers, “I’m sorry. You probably think I’m a creep.” 

She puts what is supposed to be comforting hand on his shoulder and tries not to laugh. “I don’t think you’re a creep, Zuko,” she tells him. “I…thought maybe someone was out here. I should have said something, too. I’m the one who should be sorry—I didn’t mean to trespass.” His skin is hot through the fabric of his tunic, and the excitement spills out of her rib cage into her fingertips. 

He picks up his head and offers her a little smile. “Don’t apologize. You’re welcome here anytime you like.” 

Affection rushes through her. “Thank you.” Something swells, not just inside her, but between them, crackling with energy; she can feel it zing through her limbs and coil between her legs. She lets her hand slide off his back before she is electrocuted. 

He fidgets, as if he is being shocked, too. After a moment of stretched silence, he takes a deep breath and meets her eyes. “You looked really beautiful,” he whispers. “Last night, in the water.” Slowly, his fingers creep over hers in the grass. “Tonight, too.” 

He inches toward her. Like gravity, he pulls her in, and she goes willingly until there is no space between them. It’s different, kissing him—different from her past experiences with Jet and Haru and Aang; different from anything she’s felt for Zuko before this visit—but it’s good.

***

Zuko has never been smooth. He knows this about himself, can’t do anything to fix it. He is frightened to try; when he does, he tries too hard. He freezes into doing nothing or he does too much, does everything. He is unsure, uncertain, unsteady. He is inexperienced; Mai is his only past lover.

When he leans into Katara, he is terrified. 

When his lips touch hers, everything feels right. 

They flow together like water; they dance like flame. He skims his fingers across her face, curls his hand around the back of his neck. She angles her head and sighs, sweet and quiet, when he feathers his other hand over her waist and pulls her gently to him. She lets him lick into her mouth while she crooks her knees over his thighs and winds her fingers into his hair. 

He gathers her into his lap, draws her flush against him, and she twines her arms around his neck. He doesn’t think, doesn’t need to, just lets the push and pull of their movements guide him. The splay of his hands over her back, the arch of her spine, the pretty moan that he wrings out of her with kisses and nips to her throat—it is all as natural as breathing, as steady as the tide. 

She is hot and solid in his arms; she is ephemeral in the moonlight. She is his familiar, longtime friend; she is a revelation. She is so lovely it hurts, and he tells her so. Her answering smile is radiant.

She tugs at his tunic and then lays her small hands on his bare chest while he peels her out of her clothes. Her touch lingers over his scar, permanent evidence of his sacrifice for her, before she smooths her fingers down, down and unfastens his leggings. His breath goes uneven when she grasps him, and she leans her face up to catch his mouth and drag her teeth over his jaw. 

The slow stroke of her hand feels better than he has ever imagined, ever dreamed, and he sighs her name against her temple. Pleasure starts to build low in his abdomen, so he eases her gently back until her hair is fanned over the grass and her blue eyes look up at him through long lashes. He leans in to kiss her while his fingers drift down her body, and she moans low and quiet at his touch. He draws back to watch her, watch his fingers disappear into her, and splayed out beneath him she is like a vision from the gods. 

She gasps and mewls when he presses into her, rocks her hips up to meet him while her hands clutch at his shoulders. They fit together easily, like she was made for him, and him for her, and he sets their rhythm in time with his heart. When he reaches between them, he can feel her pulse, too, beating its tattoo between her legs while she writhes and whimpers. 

Her breath hitches, and he swoops in to rain kisses over her face as she flutters and clenches around him. He is undone by the spasm of her, the way she chokes out his name, and his hips stutter while pleasure breaks over him in waves. 

When he can breathe again, he eases out and off, and she winces and shivers. He hushes her and gathers her up, smoothing her hair. She watches him with unfocused eyes while he hunts for his discarded cloak and drapes it around her. She looks as wrecked as he feels, and it is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

***

Katara usually dreads this part, the after-sex fumbling for clothes and tugging pants over sticky thighs. She hates the awkwardness, the unspoken question of _what now_ , the sweatiness that gives way to the chill. Haru and Jet, they hadn’t _not_ cared about her, but they hadn’t loved her, and she always felt a little raw after she slept with them, a little used.

Zuko, though—his every move after is as worshipful as it had been during, and she basks in it. He cleans her off with a corner of his cloak and redresses her carefully, his hands warm and steady on her oversensitive flesh. He lays a feather-light kiss on her lips before he pulls on his own clothes, and then he is helping her up onto wobbly legs, his hand firm on the small of her back. 

They walk back to the palace in easy silence, and she flushes when they pass through the guard tower together, but the soldiers don’t bat an eye. Zuko leads her without a word past the wing of the palace that holds her rooms, and she remembers how Jet and Haru hemmed and hawed about staying the night. There was always work to do early the next morning, or they didn’t want someone to catch them, or they slept better alone, and she never got to say, _I don’t_. 

Zuko ushers her into chambers so grand they must be his, and here he falters, letting his hand fall away and ducking his head. “You don’t have to sleep here,” he murmurs. “I shouldn’t have assumed…I can take you back to your room, if you want.” 

She is still fuzzy and floating, but she giggles at the return of his familiar awkwardness. “Don’t you dare,” she grins, and he smiles back brightly. He folds down the covers of the bed and lets her stretch out, pausing to shed his cloak and tunic before tumbling after her. 

She burrows into his chest and tangles their legs, sighing happily. She can feel the curve of his mouth nuzzled into her hair, and he loops his arms around her. 

She wants to say something, to say _I’ll sleep here as long as you’ll let me_ or _no one has ever made feel this way before_ or _I think I am destined to be yours_. She listens to the steady drumbeat of his heart, feels the warmth of him unfurl around her, and realizes she doesn’t have to say any of it. He already knows.


End file.
